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Even as we continue to push to protect Puget Sound, the entire effort is up against the fact that we also need to make room for as many as 4 million more people who could move here this century.

  

And as we do, we are gradually eating away at the Sound's finely tuned water-cleaning system by leveling as much as 10,000 acres of forest every year.

we still struggle to protect Puget Sound and at the same time make room for everyone to live the way they want.

state officials have balked at tougher, more costly controls

developments we allow lag behind the latest stormwater designs, because many county and city goverments are still using 16-year-old rules

newest engineering standards, some of the strictest in the country and ones that could add thousands of dollars to the cost of a home,

developers who try promising new approaches to addressing stormwater face red tape that creates costly delays or hurts effectiveness

Today, stormwater flowing into Puget Sound is a slow-motion oil spill, amounting to millions of gallons a year.

But the state didn't make them mandatory. So most local jurisdictions haven't made changes.

At McCormick Woods near Port Orchard, Kitsap County commissioners promised in 2003 to require builders to follow the most up-to-date stormwater standards. At the same time, they approved what will amount to a small city with a business park, shopping, and more than 4,000 homes and apartments, ranging from big houses along a golf course to modest ones aimed at first-time buyers.

  

Yet they didn't change any county stormwater rules. Kitsap County still follows the 1992 manual.

  

That's not unusual. Snohomish, Skagit, Pierce, Thurston, Mason and Island counties all follow the 1992 manual, and so do countless cities.

Ignored, developers say, is the cost more regulation adds to the price of new homes, putting them further out of reach of average people. Builders complain that the newest stormwater requirements will add thousands to the costs of building each house. They point to a new study from a University of Washington economist saying land-use regulations have already added $200,000 to the price of an average Seattle home.

Environmentalists and some developers say low-impact development is one answer. The state is starting to promote it, and some local governments say they want to change their rules to allow it.

  

It turns out it's easier said than done.

the concept runs up against decades of habits and rules: the assembly-line methods of major developers, concerns that low-impact methods are unproven and bureaucrats wedded to old methods.

only a few adventurous developers dare to try new approaches. But many complain of costly delays, roadblocks and outright opposition from government officials resistant to trying something new.

But some of the area's top low-impact experts say the builders are copping out, and low-impact methods can still work with customized approaches to each project, instead of cookie-cutter formulas.

  

"It's way easier for those guys to come in and do what they've always done until there's some regulation that comes in and tells them to do something else," said Curtis Hinman of Washington State University, who has written a widely used manual on low-impact development.